


Chance of failure - absolute

by V6ilill



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Dark Comedy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Disappointment, Gen, Grimdark, Hurt No Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Not Beta Read, Tragedy, Tragedy/Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23217352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V6ilill/pseuds/V6ilill
Summary: A young, somewhat naive woman tries to free herself from the endless cycle of being set up to fail. But naked enthusiasm and pent-up frustration can only go so far . . .
Relationships: None
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Chance of failure - absolute

Elena regarded the huge complex before her - badly-maintained granite trying too hard to be marble, broken windows on one side, construction catwalks on the other side, dirty workers drinking from a smuggled bottle, for their superior was nowhere in sight.

She, along with the rest of the batch, were quickly herded inside the skyscraper, shown their floor and left to socialize with the veterans of the workplace. To think that she was now of age, having completed her training! Work, glorious work for the holy Imperium awaited. She could imagine herself rising through the ranks and gaining her own office at the top, with a window and genuine electrical lamp, living like the wealthy and worthy!

Elena and the others were quickly introduced to their numbered cubicles, some being confined to the same one. Elena wondered how such tiny boxes could fit two people. They were shown the timetable on the wall, the two clocks (one was an hour off) (a local hour), the canteen, restrooms and dormitory. There was a shrine too, on the higher level, which they would all see on Sunday. Or when one needed to repent immediately. Elena couldn’t imagine that ever happening to her.

To her great dismay, her first task was to simply stamp documents. Supposedly, the servitor responsible for that had broken. Six years ago. The office was still waiting for a replacement. Well, for permission. Then they would get another.

Nonetheless, Elena had to prove herself worthy of a promotion. And she would. She would! There was so much for her to achieve, for work brought freedom and salvation. All the posters in the halls said so, anyway. So said the mantras repeated every morning and evening.

-

“Your desk is so disorganized,” a senior worker remarked “Order is divine. Order reign supreme over chaos.”

“Order cleanses impurity. Order is the way to salvation,” Elena recalled from memory. Clumsily, she shoved the papers awaiting spellchecking and documents ready to be signed into separate piles, bent down (to the great dismay of her back) and picked up all the loose dip pens and folders.

Her colleague left, an air of dissatisfaction still about her. Elena returned to her work, but the nagging desire to put completed papers on one side, pens on the other, stamps in a line kept interrupting.

“Your performance has fallen,” the same colleague remarked later that day “Laziness in sin.”

Elena blinked sleepily at the report she was checking for grammatical mistakes. The need for order interfered in her usual schedule, but at least her desk looked alright. Clearly she had to try harder.

And try she did, sacrificing sleep for progress. There were so many things to keep track of - having an orderly desk, filling out all the forms she was given, stretching once every two hours (but not sooner, for that would be slacking off), making sure the stamps stayed clean, coming to refill the ink every five days. Elena even had to stop her daily trips to the so-called ethanol repositorium, which everyone and their grandmother’s corpse knew as the vodka dispenser. Nothing helped. When the day of judgment came, she was found to be wanting.

“Someone has been slacking off,” the priest informed her “You shall live on restricted rations for a month and ruminate on your failings every night, here, before the sacred light.”

Elena nodded, gazing out of the open window which no one cared to fix. So much for trying harder.

-

Not long after, Elena’s desk returned to its natural disorderly state. No one seemed to take much offence to it, only her irate coworker, Nyusha Kalinina, whom everyone had long learned to ignore. Once Elena got the hang of tuning her out, life became much easier.

The raise which her hard work was to earn her would come soon, so soon!

-

Elena smiled as she received her first real task. Finally, she could make a difference with hard work. Not the signing of papers or the stamping of documents - no. She was given a budget to compile. One unit of 1500 men. But a day to complete such an assignment? Wasn’t that a little . . . short for such an immense task? It had to be a test. Yes, a test to see if she was worthy of a raise, no, a promotion!

A task Elena would fulfill with extreme prejudice!

Oh, she could imagine her new workstation already - a table of genuine wood, brought from beyond the Hive, from the snowy wilds where lurked farmers and men of power bult their residences! Carved from a once-living entity, where all her pens and folders would fit! And, perhaps a few candles to bring the holy light to the equally holy work?

Ah, but all that posturing wouldn’t do her any good. Better get to work.

At day’s end, Elena got up from her desk, back bent in pain, and brought the file to her supervisor. Of course, he wasn’t there himself, so Elena handed over her work to the guard.

“Your work will be reviewed,” she said in monotone, an empty bottle of vodka next to her on the ground.

“I thought drinking on duty wasn’t allowed,” Elena pointed to the bottle.

“I thought talking back to one’s betters was forbidden too,” retorted the guard.

Elena bit her lip and hobbled to the dormitory, back stiff and pulsing with pain.

“Looks like someone is being unproductive,” jeered her coworker.

“Just an exaple of my devotion to my work,” Elena rubbed her back and crumpled into bed.

The man said nothing, choosing to silently revel in his sense of superiority.

Elena found it hard to sleep, instead of dreams, all her mind saw was a larger cubicle, with candles and binders and a table with drawers. The table smelled of pine - she had no idea what the smell was like, but it had to be amazing!

She received no reply on her completed task, not on the next day, not on the day after. Not even an aknowledgement of the work she had finished in a day. As Elena was once again bogged down in the usual routine, she wondered if her calculations had lead anywhere at all. Had the unit of guardsmen actually benefited from her work? Perhaps everything she did had simply been discarded, lost in transmission.

Elena rsolved to wait and work harder when another chance came.

-

Chances came and went, as did the weeks. Patience was virtue. But Elena, confined in a cubicle the size of a toilet stall, back aching every evening, eating nothing but slop, forever barred from seeing the sunlight, didn’t feel like waiting.

She fasted to rid herself of seditious thoughts, but that only slowed down her work.

-

Elena stared at the binder. The corner of her new task peered out, mocking. She had to figure out where to get rations for three units of 1500 men - in two days. Not the cost - the producer. What rations? From where? With whose money? She had no idea where her own ration bars came from - ask the cook?

“Every other day, a servitor comes with this steel suitcase,” said the cook, stirring another pot of goop “A box on wheels, rather, I should say.”

“Who sends those?” Elena asked as her tray was filled.

“No idea,” Marina Karpova shrugged “Now move along, I don’t get paid to chitchat.”

“But-” protested Elena when she was shoved away by her irate colleagues, eager for their only moderately lukewarm meal of the day.

The tray fell out of her hands and landed on the floor.

“Hook-hands,” sneered the man who had pushed her out of the way.

“Better start cleaning,” grumbled Karpova as she plopped down a pile of ‘food’ onto another tray “Dishrags on the right, behind the dirty cups. Try not break anything while you’re at it, eh?”

Elena stared at the blob of slop on the floor and the gruel on her clothes. Her only clothes. That her mother had sewn her. That her mother had sewn her before she had died, before Elena had come here, before all this madness-

She looked at the smiling face of her colleague. She wanted to punt her fist right into his disgusting face, spit into his innocent blue eyes, make that straight nose curve a little on the end. But where would that land her? In penance. In fact, those heretical thoughts of hers, wishes of vengeance against fellow children of the Emperor (loyal children), ought to send her straight to reeducation!

Elena huffed and proceeded to take a dishrag. Behind her back, she heard quiet laughter. Her thoughts meandered back to her assignment. Should she try to intercept the servitor? But all she had seen came with either a claw hand or bad pathfinding . . . she wasn’t risking her life for that. But duty demanded she fulfill it to the letter, even if it meant forsaking her own life. What was the life of one paper-pusher for the well-being of 4500 soldiers? Everything in service to victory - so said the posters on the walls, so spoke the priests from their gilded perches.

Elena resolved to ask her supervisor.

“What do you require?” said the guard at the door.

“My instructions are unclear,” Elena felt so small, like a child, before the armored figure “I wish to ask the supervisor-”

“Return in five hours,” Guard Shuvalova answered mechanically.

“Five standard hours?” asked Elena.

“Five hours is five hours,” the taller woman didn’t so much as budge “You are dismissed.”

In exactly five standard hours, Elena was back at the door. Tardiness was heretical.

“You have come early,” the guard informed her.

In exactly five local hours, Elena returned. Misinterpretation of orders was heretical.

“You have come late,” the guard said “Report to the priest for penance.”

“How?!” Elena raised her voice “I came at five standard hours, I came at five local hours, what more could you want from me?!”

“Insubordinance is heresy.” said the guard.

Elena felt her cheeks burn and chest constrict. She marched away without another word.

“Two days of fasting and five lashes with the whip,” the ordained man passed his judgment “The whips are over there.”

All manner of torture instruments, some with gold trimmings, were arrayed in the corners of the small church. The hallowed hall was modest, no solid gold statues stood in this place of reverence. Under the watchful gaze of the priest, Popov, Elena chanted holy hymns and whipped herself.

As Elena struggled to bend her hands enough, Popov seemed to enjoy seeing her naked form immensely. Heresy absolved - for now - Elena staggered back to the dormitory.

“You have come late,” remarked the guard before its door “Hopefully your seditious thoughts will be more restrained next time.”

Elena curled up in her bed, unable to get to sleep. Her back ached like fire, having come close to being torn open. Five lashes wasn’t that much - but five lashes for what? For being a millisecond off a date unclear in the first place? If that was the case, the guard couldn’t have possibly noticed any more than Elena herself. They were both mortal and fundamentally fallible.

And the priest . . . Elena could still remember his eyes roaming her body, relishing in the sight of a young, virginal, still unsoiled woman. All his words about sin and penance and absolution seemed very meaningful all of a sudden, given his own actions.

The next day, as soon as the morning prayers finished filtering through the speakers, Elena was back at her superior’s door.

“Two standard hours,” the other guard seemed more agreeable.

Lo and behold, Elena was let in. She would’ve prayed, but she knew it was just because the guard has changed.

“You lost?” supervisor Lopatov sat on his padded chair, behind a hardwood table.

“My instructions are unclear, sir” Elena brought forth the paper “Where am I supposed to get the information necessary in order to facilitate a deal with a rations’ provider? Who should I talk to in this regard and where should I go?”

“Your work ethic is worryingly lax,” said Lopatov, eating dried fruit from a bowl on his desk “Instead of finding solutions, you slack off, procrastinate, search for excuses, refuse your assigned task, fail at your God-given duty-”

“Sir, I am simply confused about the orders,” she defended herself “I have not left this building or its courtyard in five years, I have no contacts-”

“Work is our sacred duty!” bellowed the superior “A sacred duty you dare forsake! See that you finsh this - or your soul will be damned!”

“B-but sir . . . I was given two days . . . I’m supposed to s-submit the work today . . .” she stuttered.

“What am I going to do with you?” he took the binder from her shaking hands, tossing it aside without even a glance. He picked out yet another dried fruit, the likes of which Elena had never seen before. Her mouth watered at the sight.

“Such insolence . . .” Lopatov began languidly, his former irritation gone “Oh well. Penance will have to do, I suppose. It’s hard to replace workers these days.”

Elena had the tiny feeling that he didn’t even care what she was supposed to do, only that she wasted his precious time. She had barely seen the supervisor in person before, come to think of it. Of course she hadn’t seen him. It must’ve been hard to drag a body like his around, what with it looking akin to a bloated sausage.

“You may leave now,” he waved her off, fishing out more fruit, saliva dribbling down his chin “Don’t forget your penance.”

As Elena marched out, the last thing she saw from the corner of her eye was the supervisor retrieving a bottle of vodka from the desk. Clearly, he cared very much for the well-being and productivity of his workers.

When Elena came to repent, the priest was so drunk he could barely walk. Slurring something completely unintelligible, he pointed at a wooden board, lumped together with the torture tools for some reason. She looked back at the ever-vigilant shepherd of humanity. Popov held up five fingers, then faceplanted onto the marble floor. Elena knew that it was her duty to help him out, but she didn’t. It was his own fault for drinking on duty.

Elena took the board in her hands. A crude implement, but a tool of atonement nonetheless. And yet, Elena had done nothing wrong. She had been given an impossible task and left alone to fail. The supervisor didn’t even care for her reasons, he just didn’t want to be bothered by those beneath him.

Elena gripped the board with her hands. Was she supposed to beat herself with it? She examined it closer and saw little studs, like failed nails, jutting out. She squeezed it even harder. The priest was drunk. The priest was a perv. The supervisor was completely apathetic. They had no authority over her. The divine right to obedience didn’t extend to the heretical. Incompetence was heresy. Laziness was heresy. Lust was heresy.

But insubordinance was heresy. Holy were those who submit to those greater than themselves. Saved were the souls that obeyed. She was no better than them. She had to stop thinking like that - clearly, she had failed. She had to have found a way, not ran blindly to her betters. Would she ever be able to absolve the sin of failure?

-

Elena lay on her bed, broken feet dangling down. The sheets bit into her back and her sides, gnawing like hundreds of razorblades. Her left leg was numb, the right one burning. Cleanliness was godliness, but Elena didn’t have the strength to dress her wounds. She wouldn’t be given bandages anyway - penance came through pain and treated injuries hurt less. Well, so they said. Elena had never sustained wounds severe enough to warrant treatment.

A seditious thought popped into her head. Why pray to an uncaring god who mandated blind obedience to one’s superiors, even if they were scathingly incompetent? Why waste her life and talents toiling without any hope of changing things for the better? She deserved so much more. She could achieve so much more, if the incompetents she was supposed to obey wouldn’t limit her. She could do so much without this system to restrain her . . .

Elena put her hands over her mouth. She could not think such things! Heresy begat more heresy, leading to an inevitable slippery slope down into death and depravity. She couldn’t let herself fall. She couldn’t- what awaited was worse than damnation.

The seditious thoughts halted abruptly, but Elena couldn’t shake the feeling that they had been telling her something important.

-

Elena was back to copying flyers and stamping orders. She couldn’t be trusted with more important work. The promotion she had once wanted was an impossible dream now.

Again, a dark thought crawled out from the far corner of her mind. She wasn’t stuck here through any fault of her own. She was being set up to fail, to feel bad and guilty and sinful.

No, no, that was wrong. She couldn’t think like that. She had to repent. And subject herself to the drunken priest’s ogling as he enjoyed her suffering? Pointlessly cripple herself and lower her performance even more? No, that would not do.

The posters and banners on the wall watched her, shouting brave phrases, but ultimately doing nothing. The faces of saints watched her in the shrine, embodying the perfection she was supposed to achieve, but ultimately did nothing. She prayed like everyone else, but fear coalesced in her stomach. Could she evade the wrath of her god? She had to know.

“And you, Elena Mogilova, have you strayed from the path?” the priest approached her.

“I have sinned, father. I allowed an error to slip past my vigilance,” she lied, chest cramping. No, lied would be too strong of a word. She simply . . . embellished the truth.

Elena was not smited by a bolt of divine retribution. In fact, she didn’t feel any different at all.

-

Her seditious thoughts increased in frequency. Why should she allow herself to be ignored, why should she serve a system that set her up to fail? Why should she allow this system to confine her, when, in truth, she could do so much more? Achieve so much greatness?

How would she deal with Lopatov? Words wouldn’t convince that man - no, only force would make him budge. How about beating him to a pulp, making an example? No, he’d just kill her later. Not in person, of course. Besides, she was far too weak to hold a grown man down.

It seemed that murder was the only solution.

Elena stood on the cusp of change, of a better life, of everything she studied and memorized and worked for paying off. The only question was if she would take the chance. There was always risk with every action. How big was hers?

She repeated the mantras and sang the prayers, but they were insincere now, unearnest. They meant nothing, just formalities to blend in. She no longer confessed to her sins, not to her true mistakes, at least. She didn’t need any distractions from work. She didn’t need any more people telling her to achieve the impossible. Everything the priests said were just lies to keep her down, to trap her in a closed circle of being unable to live up to perfection.

She spent the rest of her week ruminating. She couldn’t put a plan on paper, make a chart - she’d be seen. Elena couldn’t engage the man during his visits - he always brought a guard. The safest way would be to pounce in the night, using her small size and unremarkable stature to slip unnoticed. She examined the halls and structures she was permitted in during the lunch break.

-

The day of opportunity came soon. Stomach bursting with nervous excitement, Elena set out. Her supervisor had a room of his own, the lucky bastard. She explained to the guard at the dormitory’s door in no uncertain terms that she needed to use the restroom. The pits under his eyes indicated that he hardly cared anymore.

Elena was out. Her steps, though silent, still seemed to echo within the hallways. The knife under her robe was ice cold against the skin. Idly, she wondered who would be their new supervisor. Certainly not someone worse. Perhaps Yakov Komarov, the perpetual drunkard? Or Anita Andreyeva, who seemed to care? Or the senile Serafima Guseva? Either way, Lopatov would not be missed.

His door was in sight. Elena stepped closer, drawing the knife. A guard patrolled in the distance, like she usually did. When the woman turned to go down the other hall, Elena stepped out of the shadows and grasped the doorknob.

It creaked.

Instantly, Elena remembered all the flaws in her poorly thought-out plan. In truth, it was carried by naked enthusiasm, not by any rational deductions. She had no alibi, nowhere to hide the knife, she was poorly trained, knowing nothing of stealth, everyone knew that it was her paper knife, and the guard - the guard!

Guard Shuvalova rounded the corner and shot six times. None missed.

Elena grasped for her midsection, which now looked like the foreign cheese she had once seen - but not eaten - as a child. The cheese had been very valuable . . . no, it was not cheese, it was her abdomen, she had to stop the blood, crawl away . . . crawl away . . .

. . . how much blood had Elena- did the cheese cost?

Elena lay before the door, vision shrouded in blue mist. Her arms were heavy, one still holding the knife. She was so close to her fulfillment, she had come so far. She couldn’t give up now. She couldn’t. He was so close! One more step to the door, one more to the bed and she would take him with her, help everyone else.

The false hope faded from her eyes. Elena had come far, but she could’ve never gone further. Her inexperience and rashness had set her up to fail. So had the system which employed her, the apathetic and indifferent supervisor and the very tenets of a religion that saw unfailing productivity not as an ideal to strive for, but an achievable goal . . .

Elena spat up blood. Guard Shuvalova kicked her in the shoulder and Elena was done for.

The last thing she remembered was the half-finished supply rations’ request, still on her table.

-

Elena reluctantly got up, feeling her hands and legs twist a few more degrees than was possible. She stood before the same door, knife in hand. Her fingers seemed to have lost their texture, looking wooden and artificial. She turned the knob, although her hand seemed to pass through it.

The room opened, ceiling flickering with neon blue light. Elena averted her gaze. The supervisor slept, undisturbed - or was it a hunk of dough dressed in a uniform? Elena took a step. The paper knife morphed into a kitchen utensil, blade stretching. The metal didn’t shine, it looked just as dull and wooden as everything else. Elena stood on the blue rug, which seemed genuine, unlike all other objects in the vicinity.

She lunged at the supervisor, wishing to end the obstacle in her way, when she fell through the blue carpet. Elena’s legs dangled helplessly on the other side of the rug, while she flailed her arms in a futile attempt to free herself of the floor. The supervisor was right there - asleep. He was close- so close! One more step . . . one more push . . . and she would be free, justice would be served, lives would be bettered. If only she could take a step . . .

Somewhere, something malicious and sadistic laughed over her demise, reveling in the tragic end of a fool’s quest, watching her scream and flail in a tiny room in the middle of nowhere, trapped just like she was in life . . .

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of inspired by my own feelings regarding my life. Namely, that I rolled 1 five times on character creation, and ended up with a mind that actively sabotages everything I try to do. My greatest obstacles have always been internal and everything that I accomplish has always been in spite of myself. It's left me frustrated and bitter, as well as jealous at everyone, for any reason. My mind always gives me fuel to see others as better off. Been in therapy for a third of my life and I've made progress, but I'm aware that in some regards, my mind still functions like a three-year-old's. Grown a lot over the past decade, but there is a huge gap in ability between me and all my peers, one which I will likely never breech.
> 
> Oh, and the best part? The people who insist I'm faking.
> 
> Sorry had to rant a bit.


End file.
